


The Singing

by Ghostcoffeee



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 17:47:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19408264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostcoffeee/pseuds/Ghostcoffeee
Summary: Hello!I'm usually a lurker on these types of sites, but for this one (and strangely soon after I made an account) I thought that I'd contribute.Do note that I'm new to the site and am not entirely used to the common writing styles, tags and whatnot, so any comments, suggestions or general tips are welcome! Nor am I a native English speaker, so some things might be wrong, grammatically incorrect or just make no sense, even though I try so hard to make it as good as possible.Anyways, I'll not waste more of your time with this drivel, so do try to enjoy this mishmash I wrote.





	The Singing

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!
> 
> I'm usually a lurker on these types of sites, but for this one (and strangely soon after I made an account) I thought that I'd contribute.  
> Do note that I'm new to the site and am not entirely used to the common writing styles, tags and whatnot, so any comments, suggestions or general tips are welcome! Nor am I a native English speaker, so some things might be wrong, grammatically incorrect or just make no sense, even though I try so hard to make it as good as possible.  
> Anyways, I'll not waste more of your time with this drivel, so do try to enjoy this mishmash I wrote.
> 
> * * *

* * *

The battle had just ended, that much was clear. Artillery stopped firing and only the moaning of wounded soldiers remained, revealing their locations to us. Of course, we were the executioners, and the medics, the ones first onto the battlefield to finish off stragglers and the enemy survivors, bringing our own back to the base. It usually went well, it was quiet, save for the moaning and occasional boom of our rifles handing mercy onto the ones surviving, but not this time. There were far too few survivors on our side and none of theirs. Something happened. And then I heard it. The singing. Hundreds, thousands, maybe, of voices, began singing. It was not our song, nor our enemies', but some other, strange melody. Within seconds, the singers' voices cleared up. They were children, early teenagers, from the sounds of it. The longer they sang, the more distorted my view became. At first, the air started to smell of metal, the sky turned a weird mix of purples, greens and yellows, my friends' and comrades' voices melded together into nothingness. Only the singing remained.

A breeze picked up, filling the air with more of that metallic stench. We were soldiers, we were supposed to be used to death and weirdness and the smell of iron, ozone, and plasma, but this was different. This was worse, but before I started to choke on the metal in the air, I was saved. By whom, I don't know, I only heard the singing of these thousands of children, the music enticed me to listen further, to stay calm, even though I didn't understand a single word they were singing about. I tried looking around, but the colours of the sky started blending in with the ground, like paint starting to mix with water. I tried calling out to someone, anyone that could hear me, but nought but warm air came out of my mouth. I tried screaming, yet the singing prevailed and I stood silent. It felt like I was standing there for an eternity before I felt a small, cold hand touch the back of my neck. Startled, I tried to quickly turn around, but I couldn't move and the figure moved in front of me. It was a short creature, maybe came up to my waist, with radiant icy eyes and a face not dissimilar to our old 'Gods', the ones we killed thousands of years ago. Its arms were thin, speckled with crystals with the same glow as its eyes and its skin was as pale as the ash of the battlefield I no longer stood on. 

The creature opened its mouth as if to speak, but any voice it had was drowned out by the singing. The damn singing. It started to annoy me, constantly repeating the same melody, the same meaningless words. The longer they sang, the more I felt detached from reality, memories faded, faces forgotten, entire lives turned to ash. I tried to look back at the creature in front of me in vain, as I was still unable to move, but I saw a clear look of anger in those brilliant eyes. But I felt the anger was not directed towards me, a trapped nobody, but towards the singers, the ones tormenting me. It snapped its head upwards, clearly having noticed something and with a wave of its hand, the singing stopped, the ash of the battlefield separated from the sky and I began to hear the moans of our survivors once more. I was saved from the maddening singing by this strange creature. As I shook the memories, the faces and lives back into my head, I looked around for the small creature that had saved me, but saw only entrenchments, small craters, and corpses, both ours and our enemies', and as such, I headed back to base with what little strength had remained in me. Back at base, there was nothing new. I patched up the survivors, sent the recruits to find some target practice as not to spend time idly and retired to my bunk, as the day was closing and I had just spent eternity trapped by strange, childlike singers.

It was a dreamless night, nothing new for a soldier. We have too much to think about while we're awake to waste time making dreams up. We had a regular headcount, one was missing. We didn't find their body, so they probably deserted in the worst of the fighting. An understandable choice, as when millions die on both sides, it was difficult to keep your composure and stay put. We arranged a search party, nothing unusual. Three troopers and light scoutcraft, along with rations and water for at least a week. I had volunteered to join this party, as the deserter was one of my students. I felt a bond with them and if they were to be punished, I wanted to deliver it. We found them within the third hour, a lucky break, really, as I didn't want to spend too much time in this wasteland.

Except that it wasn't. I saw the small pale creature once more, looking straight at the deserter. They were kneeling, probably dead tired and didn't have the energy to fight back against the creature. We moved closer with our scoutcraft, trying to be as silent as possible, as not to attract attention to ourselves. Once we were within earshot of the two, the singing began again. The damn singing, bringing weirdness along with it. But it didn't. The air didn't reek of metal, nor did the sky blend with the ground, it was like it was being suppressed, blocked. And as I stared at the creature, it snapped its head towards me. I could see its eyes glow even from such a distance. But nothing else happened, the creature, upon spotting me slightly bowed its head and snapped back towards the kneeling soldier in front of it. We moved closer, the singing got louder, yet none of the effects occurred. I groaned, trying to get the voices out of my head, but they didn't go and the two other troopers nearby just looked at me in confusion. I waved them off and we continued towards the two.

We were within spitting distance of the kneeling soldier and the creature, the singing became nearly unbearable, like the first time, yet none of the effects occurred. I got off my scoutcraft and walked towards the creature. Now that I could see it properly, it was slightly taller than my first estimation and came up to around my stomach area, its head covered in short horns and fins. It was then, that I realized the truth. The creature was an Ashet, an outcast probably, judging from the pale skin, and a Cracker, judging from the glowing eyes and crystals. Yet it was unusually short. Even the shortest Ashet was about as tall as my shoulders and I didn't think that they had any children. It was no matter, though. I now knew what it was doing with the deserter. It was learning, sifting through their mind, stealing skills, language, faces, and thoughts. From them, it learned of me, what I had taught them and so, the creature became my second student.

And once more, the Ashet looked up, waved off something in the skies and disappeared into the ashen wastes. The deserter came to a few moments later and upon being questioned, remembered none of the encounter, only the singing and the stench of metal. They had experienced the same thing as me. As we returned to base with the deserter, there was complete silence. No one wanted to discuss anything about what just happened and what they saw. An Ashet is a rare sight on the surface, as they live in their hive cities under the ground, only sending up small groups of heavily shielded troops to scout out the areas. No one would believe them, should they say that they saw one, anyhow.

We got back to base and the singing began once more. It was faint and no person in sight was standing motionless, staring into the eternity, so there was something else happening here. We put away the unused supplies and put the scoutcraft into storage, which took longer than expected and as I went out of the storage, I noticed that it was starting to get dark. Not a very strange thing, really, especially during this time of year. I returned to the barracks, expecting a long night, especially after what just happened, but what I received was a visit from this particular Ashet that kept popping up. It was silent, as usual, and the singing was strangely quiet, although some of the effects of it were there. The air smelt metallic, the daylight looked wrong. I moved closer to the short Cracker, slightly confused as to how it managed to get into this heavily defended base undetected, but the thought quickly faded from my mind. I moved towards my bunk, but it jumped on top of it as soon as I got near it. Slightly annoying, but not entirely unexpected. I sat down on my bunk, which luckily was the bottom one, near the short Ashet and remembering the fact that it now knew everything about me and all of my teachings, I calmly uttered the general soldier's greeting in this wasteland: "Eyo."

My voice sounded raspy, probably due to the fact that I didn't drink all that much, but it wasn't too unusual, especially for a soldier of my stature. I was quite a tall individual with a lean body shape, so much so that people think that I'm mostly sinew and bone. Either way, enough about me. The Ashet replied in kind and spoke in a soft, somewhat androgynous, yet somehow slightly girly voice. Its voice was clear, melodic. A common trait among the Ashet I've encountered over the years on these dunes, be they Crackers, outcasts or the occasional Aetherguard squad. A few seconds after we exchanged greetings, the singing in the background completely stopped, probably off to haunt someone else. "You hear the singing, don't you?" said the Ashet, looking at me with a clear interest in those icy eyes. I nodded and asked the creature what the singing was, why it was there and so on, and so on. It answered the questions with surprising speed as if thinking several times faster than the brightest of geniuses, though it is expected of a Cracker.

It explained that the singing was a reaction to all the death that happened a few days ago. It was a sort of mental leech, that stopped being able to tell the dead and the living apart, causing those caught in its gaze to lose memories and see the end of their life: absolute nothingness, as the world around them blends together into a single shape. The Ashet Crackers are trained to repel these attackers from the undeserving and so even an outcast will know how to do it. We continued chatting on various topics, discussing and comparing Ashet and our technology, laughing at the jokes they took from my student's mind. I didn't mind anymore, this Ashet became one of my few friends on this planet, someone who understood what I've been through, because they've been through something worse. It isn't easy living on a planet that's been mostly turned to ash.

Eventually, our discussions turned to the topic of the Crystal Palace. It was an aptly named and grandiose construct, covering slightly less than half of the planet's surface. Built by the old 'Gods', whose names we have forgotten as we killed them, it isn't the only such creation either on this planet, nor our homeworld. These 'Gods' controlled the galaxy at some point, changing a countless amount of species to their liking. Some, like the Ashet, were turned into a biologically perfect species, biologically immortal, incredibly strong, smart and perhaps to their eyes, beautiful, yet robbed them of the ability to make offspring of their own. Other species, like ours, were changed less, probably an earlier experiment. We were made stronger, smarter, but more militaristic as a result of their experiments. We weren't warmongers, mind you, but we could've been considered a true warrior race after their changes.

Either way, the crystal palace. It's a grand ruin. Yes, ruin. It's an absolute mess, though an incredibly dangerous mess, filled with ash wurms, traps, turrets, sapient constructs, the occasional statue depicting their creators and many, many more other dangers. The crystal palace, as previously mentioned, is aptly named. It actually is made out of crystals of various kinds, some synthetic, some naturally occurring on many different planets. Many attempts have been made by both Ashet and our forces to search the palace, all of them had failed, due to the aforementioned dangers. Everything's been tried: Orbital bombardment, disintegration cannons, once they even tried to crack the palace by destroying the crust around it. None of it worked, the place is damn indestructible. Do keep in mind, that the planet was turned to ash before all these attempts to crack the palace. The Ashet beside me told me that they also waged a war against the 'Gods', but instead of a pyrrhic victory we achieved, they concluded the war with a draw. The 'Gods' turned the planet into ash, killing a vast amount of the Ashet, forcing many of them underground, while suffering a large number of casualties themselves.

After the various exchanges about history, jokes and so on, I checked my watch, noticing that it was past midnight, even though no one entered the barracks, and decided to tuck in for the night. The Ashet used their powers to blend in with the ash-dusted concrete floor and scooted underneath the bunk. A handy power, I must say. The night was calm, if windy and when I finally fell asleep, I dreamed that I was wandering through the Crystal Palace. Not as myself, though, as some sort of construct. I had hands made of a faintly glowing and slightly transparent teal crystal, my legs were made of dark metal and made a soft clinking noise on the dark crystalline floors of the palace. I eventually found a clear and reflective surface to see myself properly. I was tall, maybe a head taller than my normal body, with a build similar to the Ashet, that is very thin and limber. I lacked any sexual characteristics and my body was a mix of the crystal my hands are made of and the dark metal my legs are made of. My face was, strangely enough, the most simple thing on my body. It was a regular, featureless mask with slightly slanted diamond shapes for eyes, glowing with the same teal glow as the crystals on my body, only more vibrantly and stronger.

In this dream, I wandered the ancient halls of the palace. Nothing noticed me, or rather, nothing cared about me. I explored each room, finding unreadable texts or transcendent AI monitoring the building. I felt both out of place there and perfectly at home, a horrifying feeling, really and after I finished exploring the third grand hall, I woke from my sleep. The dream faded quickly from my mind, but pieces of it remained with me. The morning was not unusual. We had a head count, then roll call. We didn't go out to the battlefield any more, there was nothing for us to do out there anymore. All our survivors were rescued, all of our enemies' - dead, though not by our hands. I did my regular duties as one of the base's medics, that being patching up the occasional bruise or other injury people get during work or boredom. All the while, the little Ashet was skulking around me, whispering some interesting things into my mind via their powers. Sometimes its jokes they learned by idly sifting through the minds of passersby, other times its rumours, sometimes its the occasional love affair going on in the base.

Later in the morning, we all were gathered to listen to a broadcast from Command. This ought to be good, as these don't happen often. Our radios and other communicators then spoke in the booming voice of our Grand Admiral, on his flagship in orbit. And the voice spoke: "Today marks the end of this long conflict. Our enemies have surrendered, leaving the surface to its new caretakers: us. I know that many of you have families back on the homeworld and as the war is over, you are free to go home. Today, at forty-five past mid-day, those wishing to go home shall be taken up to my ship and be free to leave. Good day, soldiers. Good journeys in the future." and the booming voice stops, while the entire base erupts in cheers, laughter and fun. We had won. We were going back home. I chuckled under my breath. Of course, I had family back on the homeworld, but no one would know of the little friend I would be bringing back home. A new student, a new part of the family.


End file.
